Tuesday, August 9, 2011

How Many Days a Week Should you Train?

This question gets asked frequently by many students. I try and break it down to my students depending on what goals they have.

If they are a casual jiu-jitsu practitioner then I always suggest two to three times a week. If they are crazy about Jiu-Jitsu then I suggest three to four times a week and If they are trying for world competition domination then I say 5 to 6 times a week. This doesn’t always mean that you should roll in EVERY class although you have no choice in some schools, but in our school I never force anyone or make them feel bad if they don’t want to roll that night. I’m in the minority.

I suggest that if you only come once a week then you should quit Jiu-Jitsu because you are only going to get left in the dust by everyone else and you will forget what you have learned from the week before. I know there are exceptions to this but really..why waste your time? It’s called Goal Setting. You should try it. Jiu-Jitsu should be a life style not something you freakin dabble in.

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I have a hard time training without putting in time with my books and videos. If I come to class and see a technique, I really only grasp it once I've wrapped my mind around it on my own. This gets me looked at like I'm not fully invested but it's how I've always been - I always read my textbooks before the class even started and feel comfortable taking the same approach with jiu jitsu. I don't expect to compete at a high level but still want to respect the art.

I agree with the above post about learning techniques in your mind. When I have time to study this way I definitely get better. In fact, I believe the more time and effort you put into jiu-jitsu the better you get. But for me, work and family are often a priority.

I train three times a week when my job alouds me to do it, sometimes I just end my journey too late to go to train. I don't agree about your vision about people who only train once a week, it is true that the progress is going to be slower that the rest of the class, but as any other martial art, the progress is very personal and you cannot compare yourself with other people with different sport skills and body size. If you love bjj, but for any reason you only can train once a week, it is going to be absolutely better train under that few period of time than never train. I say don't quit, fill the gaps of the non train day watching videos, tutorials, practicing alone at home, etc.

I wouldn't agree with that, in terms of quitting if you can only make it once a week. Obviously that isn't ideal, but if you make sure that once a week is high quality, then it's worth it.

For example, if you come in with a clear plan of what you want to work in sparring, take lots of notes, then supplement it with videos, books and careful consideration of what you've learned afterwards.

There are a number of times when I've only been able to train once a week, but I've still found it beneficial. After all, I'm not in this to be better than everyone else, just better than the me of a few months/years ago. So, doesn't really matter if I'm getting left in the dust by others. ;)

Even at best, I normally only make it twice a week at best, sometimes three.

I respectfully disagree that you should quit if you only train once per week. I have been training BJJ for 14 years and I have never averaged more than once per week. Have I been left in the dust by a lot of people? Absolutely. All the people I started with who did not quit are black belts. But I am WAY further along than 99.9% of the people who started with me because they all quit. I am a purple belt and roll competitively with the other purple belts in my gym. I don't expect to ever be great, but I enjoy it too much to quit. I would like to train more, but I have other priorities in my life that are more important.

I've kind of wondered about this myself...though I'm really not seeing who's losing out when a person trains once per week. If they are happy, have the resources, don't mind being "left in the dust" and aren't holding back anyone else's growth, where's the downside? I do 2-3 times per week, want to up it to 4 just for the sake of improvement and honestly, I'd consider myself to be "dabbling". Where do you draw the line?

I somewhat see a reason if a person isn't showing improvement, but I've seen people engage in interests similar to jiu jitsu, show no improvement and go away happy as a lark just for the sake of the interaction and physical activity.

Hey. I'm starting up in an mma gym soon.Im trying to figure out which classes to attend.

They have mma classes, bjj and muay Thai specific classes taught by different instructors who specialise in that art.

I'm considering doing mma class Monday and Wednesday, bjj on Tuesday and muay Thai on Thursday and Saturday. My hope is that the mma class will be bjj heavy enough that my bjj won't get left behind. What do you think?

I understand that there is a personal aspect here as to where my interests lie. I'm a beginner so I don't know yet so really I am asking on the topic of the post rather than on opinions as to which is better etc. will that be enough bjj to make progress? Most mma classes are quite bjj heavy right?

i think the other important note is some academies have gruelling 2 hour classes while others are 1 hour light sessions. There's a big difference i think because 6 days a week of tought judo-style bjj can be hard on your body and the trick is really to avoid injury as well. So I think if you do go for more than 4 times per week, some days you wanna take it light, do a good warm up and do some light rolling and drill a few techniques you are personally developing and incorporating into your game